Why I left TV, and Why I Return

I came out of my hole the other day. I was doing research and checking out some YouTube videos on a “phenomena topic” I was researching. Sure enough featured on this History Channel segment was a familiar name from the topic, one whose name was well known from the late 1970s. To cast no aspersion, for this person did very credible work in her heyday, but this was the reason I had left doing TV.

I did not want to be a name forever associated with a single topic, forever promoted as chasing a mystery, forever promoted as a “topic’s” expert talking head. Typecasting in “real TV” is just as limiting and deadly as in dramatic work. In the world of real mystery, is it a good thing to never solve what you chase?

I got painted with the brush of the Bermuda Triangle. But in documentary TV it never became the adventure I believed it to be, the way in which I pursued it. It became a regurgitation of favorite cases and inappropriate suggestions for theories.

Now though I have been offered twice this year to star in my own series, it is a different matter. It will start with the Triangle– hopefully be a “muscular curiosity” type of adventure defining and investigating the Triangle. And if my personality holds up, it could expand to all the other topics I do.

This means redefining some of these topics, sometimes drastically, and it means a chance to actually solve some for TV. It means a chance to introduce some as well. It means a chance to be the “real life Kolchak” again.

I was on TV for 11 years before I walked for the last 5. To give you an idea of how they cared more about my knowledge than me, producers are now surprised I have a sense of humor. I always did. Now they like me and my knowledge, not necessarily in that order. They all like that I have a nifty not-so-super superhero handle– “Q-Man” and that a man of my age can wear a real puka shell necklace. They all love The Quester Files. It zings! Most of all, they like I lost and am losing a lot of weight.

It will not “reality TV.” It will be a genuine adventure and learning series.

So why not?

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Since 1990 Gian J. Quasar has investigated a broad range of mysterious subjects, from strange disappearances to serial murders, earning in that time the unique distinction of being likened to “the real life Kolchak.” However, he is much more at home with being called The Quester or Q Man. “He’s bloody eccentric, an historian with no qualifications who sticks his nose into affairs and gets results.” He is the author of several books, one of which inspired a Resolution in Congress.